Infinite Reality audiobook

Really cool book that I managed to discover while watching a Matrix trilogy marathon on tv. I had seen the matrix trilogy several times, and as it was on tv in the background I realized I never truly understood the meaning of how it all ended. I decided to look for a forum with explanations and found a spectacular one for all things Matrix that, after sifting through it, made me appreciate all the ins and outs of the series that I hadn't ever appreciated before. On this site were some highlighted books that were critical to the inspiration of the movie. While Infinite Reality wasn't one of the specific ones listed, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to find it. In a nutshell, it dives into how our brain works and how the social cues and connections we make daily in grounded reality translate directly into virtual reality, why so many find it so easy to get lost in games, and how the human brain and it's everlasting need to not be alone is the driving force behind more and more using social media, dating sites, and immersive role playing games like Second Life, which is referenced repeatedly throughout the book. Very interesting too are the educational and teaching applications for virtual classrooms, being able to step inside historical battles to better learn from them, and how technology and its increasing ability to render life like images make the same areas of our brain fire off that would if we were experiencing these same situations in grounded reality. Bottom line: when the brain feels it's "real", it's real. Written by two scientists who pioneer in the field, I enjoyed it and was continually saying "wow" as examples of case studies showed just how universally the same we are when put in specific social situations, whether these situations are occurring in virtual reality or in grounded reality. and how because of this, the virtual reality that most feel is too sci-fi to be taken seriously, is actually present now and continually visited as our technology grows more and more immersive.

alot of fun to read about the different ways peole are alienated, how to best assist students to learn, (eye contact, eye movement) etc, and how virtual reality can help people adjust their mental states using experiences.

Great read and insightful for today's climate when maintaining social distancing. Not all of us are living a virtual reality, but we are constantly online almost out of necessity (work, school, relationships, etc.). Glad that I picked up this book for this month.

Very informative and nice

Fascinating, well written and super cool.

The notion of virtual immortality differs from the notion of preserving consciousness. The idea is that, with virtual “tracking data” collected over a long period of time, one can preserve much or even most of people’s idiosyncrasies, including a large set of behaviors, attitudes, actions, appearances, etc. One will not be able to “relive” life through an avatar, but nonetheless, a digital being that looks, talks, gestures, and behaves as they once did can occupy virtual space indefinitely. In this sense, there are two ways to think about “immortality.” One is extending the nature of one’s life to be able to continue to enjoy the fruits of living. The other, less experiential, is about preserving one’s legacy.***With The Matrix as their cultural touchstone for many of the arguments in this book, Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson have put together an easy-to-digest primer for the future—and in some cases present—possibilities of living being our flesh and bone shells.Virtual Reality is the book’s bread and butter—the creation of worlds and universes to slip into without ever having to leave our homes, or our bodies for that matter. The authors begin by taking us on an exploratory tour of virtual reality—through its conception, experiments performed, and even pop culture extrapolations of common ideas and hypotheses regarding the medium. Through virtual reality, the whole of human experience—things long since past or yet to come; fears to overcome; loves and relationships to explore—can theoretically be replicated, allowing users to expand far beyond the limitations of a soft, destructible human frame in an attempt to explore avenues rarely travelled.As the authors dive deeper into this subject matter, it becomes clear that virtual reality is only the beginning. Through such means, and our increased incorporation of digital and online faculties into our daily lives, humans are leaving a wealth of digital footprints on the world—detailed information that can be used to construct experiences, eventually leading to the documentation and digitization of an individual’s life, possibly even one day uploading such information to an online avatar that, in a sense, can act and learn based on the accrued knowledge of the living body. Should we one day crack the secret of cloning, uploading a slate of memories, knowledge, and experiences into a replica body a la the mindjack experience of Neo learning kung fu in The Matrix, could prove the key to immortality.This is, of course, assuming the makeup of an individual is based solely on their quantifiable experiences and memories. There’s an entire ethical and metaphysical side to the question that remains untouched in the book, though not to its detriment—engaging in a religious or spiritual debate regarding what it is that makes a human unique and impossible to replicate would have diluted the strength of the book’s focussed argument.Blascovich and Bailenson’s book is a spark for a much larger, infinitely more complex set of questions and arguments both for and against the basic possibility of living forever through digital means. The science is presented well through a series of examples that build upon one another with no room for confusion. Though the book feels as if it is just scratching the surface of what this technology has to offer humanity, on individual, social, and historical levels, Infinite Reality offers a compelling introduction into a world far beyond what we can imagine, one that we’ve only begun to explore.

Good introduction showing the effect and the potential of virtual reality.